Random Small But Poignant Facts We Just Learned About Abraham Lincoln (14 items)

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  (#6) He Joked About What Papers Called His 'Horrid-Looking' Appearance

  Lanky, tall, and angular, Abraham Lincoln was often ridiculed for his appearance. One South Carolina newspaper went so far as to label Lincoln a "horrid-looking wretch."

  Characteristically, Lincoln used those insults as fuel for self-deprecating jokes. While debating political rival Stephen Douglas, Lincoln answered Douglas's allegation that he was "two-faced" with, "If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?"
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  (#4) His Stepmother Called Him 'The Best Boy I Ever Saw'

  After the premature passing of Abraham Lincoln's birth mother, his father Thomas Lincoln remarried. In 1819, the widow Sarah Bush Johnston became Abraham's stepmother.

  The stepmother and stepson enjoyed an affectionate bond. Abraham even referred to her as his "mama." The feeling was mutual. Sarah Lincoln called him "the best boy I ever saw" and celebrated how well they got along:

  Abe never gave me a cross word or look and never refused in fact, or even in appearance, to do anything I requested him. I never gave him a cross word in all my life... His mind and mine - what little I had [-] seemed to move together - move in the same channel.
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  (#2) He Grew His Famous Beard Because An 11-Year-Old Girl Suggested It

  Though Abraham Lincoln's beard is nearly as synonymous with the tall, lanky president as his stovepipe hat, he actually spent the vast majority of his life clean-shaven. But that changed after the 51-year-old president-to-be received a letter from 11-year-old Grace Bedell in October 1860.

  In her letter, Bedell explained how Lincoln could soften his angular facial features ahead of the presidential election:

  I have yet got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President.

  Lincoln replied to Bedell's letter and stopped shaving his facial hair. The rest is history.
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  (#13) He Had Lifelong Swings Toward 'Melancholy'

  Though Mary Todd Lincoln's mental health has been the subject of intense debate since the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln seems to have struggled with his mental health, too.

  His family, friends, and colleagues often noted Lincoln's melancholic disposition, though it was balanced by his sense of humor. According to colleague Henry Whitney:

  No element of Mr. Lincoln's character was so marked, obvious and ingrained as his mysterious and profound melancholy.

  Biographer Joshua Wolf Shenk has argued that Lincoln's "melancholy" was really a case of clinical depression that ebbed and flowed his entire life.
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  (#12) He Rarely Spoke About His Mother, Who Perished When He Was 9

  Abraham Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln passed in 1818 when the future president was only 9 years old. The cause was "milk sickness": She consumed milk tainted with white snakeroot, a poisonous plant. It likely happened while she was nursing relatives who had also come down with milk sickness.

  Though Lincoln fondly remembered Nancy Lincoln as his "angel mother," he seldom spoke of her. 
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  (#8) He Was 'Inordinately Fond Of Jokes, Anecdotes, And Stories'

  By all accounts, Abraham Lincoln loved telling tales - and the funnier the tale, the better. Indeed, Lincoln was well known for his sense of humor.

  His jokes had a political function: He often used humor as a way to bridge divides with opponents, connect with audiences during speeches and debates, and undermine critics.

  One 19th-century reporter remarked:

  I could not take a real personal liking to the man, owing to an inborn weakness for which he was even then notorious and so remained during his great public career, he was inordinately fond of jokes, anecdotes, and stories.

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